


salt (i wonder if i could have hurt you sooner.)

by lordbobby



Series: if you tell me it was intentional (i'll tell you i was inevitable) [2]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Food bribes, Gen, It's The Beginning, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22988920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordbobby/pseuds/lordbobby
Summary: An early conversation between Angel and Julia, before names and pretenses. Before everything was chosen (before they chose at all.)I like the title too much so it might go to another deserving pain-fueled fic.
Series: if you tell me it was intentional (i'll tell you i was inevitable) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639552
Kudos: 16





	salt (i wonder if i could have hurt you sooner.)

“So what made you decide to do this?” Charge asks, lips curled up curiously. She has her fingers bent at the junction of her chin and her jaw. They’re at a burger joint on the opposite side of town you’re used to, fit with the recycled scenery of late night diners that still to you was novel and interesting. The checker tiles, the red couches, the smells of fresh meat, fry oil. Your mask is rolled up, an old prototype, and your mouth is hovering around your burger for a moment before you draw it back. “I thought you weren’t going to ask questions like that.”

  
But know Charge to disregard it. You’d barely met her, knew the name, feared the power, but now she sits beside you and her mind is a brick wall. Not a bridge, not a radio tower giving off impressions. It makes your nose twitch, not knowing. “Did I say that?” Her smile is playful, a sharpness in her gaze. She’s been doing that lately. Trying to get a read on you like you’re trying to get a read on her. Guess you’re not used to asking verbally just yet. She gestures to your meal, a chocolate shake faintly obscuring the lightning bolt on her suit. Isn’t she worried about getting it dirty? “I bought you dinner.”

“I didn’t take that as a bribe.” You say, and the burger (bun with impressions of your fingers, oils saturating your gloves) lowers further toward your plate to avoid the threatening drip of mustard leaking from the back end.

That’s when Charge’s hands go up, defensive. “I’m not bribing you. I’m…”

“Curious.” You finish, face tilted down to contemplate your food. Your answer. Something tells you that you aren’t getting away without one. “...Other vigilantes would be happy to answer that question, especially with the premise of a dinner date with the Ranger’s own.” Her eyes bore into you still, not even bothered to play with her hair like she had the first time she invited you for a bite. The first time, you’d had a bloody nose the whole time and didn’t say anything, and you watched her put ketchup directly on her fries and call it one of her worst sins. If that’s all she’s got in the closet, you’re almost afraid to ask what her  _ worst _ would be. For now, she’s dunking shoestrings in her milkshake. “And you’re not?”

When you don’t answer, she leans forward. “Most other vigilantes have a name. Want a name.”

A shrug. Your food is getting cold, but you’re proving a point. “Guess I like my privacy.”

She shrugs back, echoing you willingly. “Which is why I’m curious.” Which is why she shouldn’t be. You two have been at this for a while, trying to meet a middle when neither is bent at backing out. 

You know better, you know the trouble people like the Rangers could get you in. All it takes is a slip of tongue, a description, a vague understanding of your powers, and you’d be hauled back to the Farm in the middle of the night before Charge has anything to say about it. Nevermind that she wouldn’t want to save you anyway. Nevermind that you can’t push past the static in her brain as it were. No, Charge is immune to you. You have to bear with whatever tactics she has against you, can’t nudge her toward ignoring you, can’t give an impression that you’re someone else. (And any of those things would be exhausting, and particularly damning. The last thing you need is the Rangers figuring out there’s a telepath on the field.)

She also knows better than to trust a vigilante off the streets. So you’re at a standstill.

After a hard moment of staring at each other, you relent with a dramatic sigh. “I got tired of not doing anything.” Which was true. “I don’t want attention, but I got tired of sitting idle.”  _ This is a world where people can get away with doing something. _ Los Diablos was awful, but it was yours. You’d found it. You’d started your new life here. Your own life.

Your scalp itches. Your skin itches. You want to scratch under the collar of your suit but you can’t so your fingers just twitch. 

“That can’t be it.” Charge smiles, but she likes the answer and it shows. “Such humble beginnings? You fight like you have nothing to lose,” you don’t, “but also everything.” 

She’s right. You hate that. Your eyebrow twitches. “Is that your final analysis, doctor?” A shudder ratchets up your spine.

“Okay, it was a little dramatic.” She says, waving a hand. “Still. Something came before this.”

You eat because you’re mad, because she’s right, and because you can’t hide forever. “We all can’t come from military backgrounds.” You mumble.

Charge’s smile widens. “You’ve done your research.”

“You’re not hard to do research on.”

“You’re interested.”

That has you. You don’t know the answer but you don’t like the presumptions. Your face warms, startled. “I need to know who I’m around if I’m going to be in this business. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“Look,” Charge leans forward, her fingers pronounced on the table. You watch the repetition, count, “You care enough to be cautious. You’re more an adept fighter than most vigilantes in this city, and you’ve been at it longer than others try to. If you won’t answer questions, fine,” You scoff, because that wouldn’t stop Charge from asking. You’d learned that already, “but I need something to go off of if you want to keep working the streets.”

“What’ll you do? Arrest me?”

“Maybe.”

The smile is gone now. You pick up your fries, eat because they’re getting cold and less palpable by the minute. “This is what I want to do.” You don’t have a good reason, you aren’t entirely sure of your reason. “I’m tired of not doing something. I have to do something.”

Charge for a moment is serious, tapping the table for emphasis. “But is this what you want to do?”

You’d like to say you saw it at that moment. Blood splatters, screams, tears, fears. You want to think somewhere, neon green decay lurked in the back of your mind. The slow flex of metal bodies. You want to think that you knew, from here, that things were going to change and be bigger than you ever thought. That you were going to gain and gain and lose and lose and lose until you chose your side. The side you were always on.  You didn’t.

Your lip curls up, just slightly, a sureness in your chest. Was that a heart? You hoped so. “Yes.”


End file.
